Wednesday, 25 January 2017

Some Mosul Residents Face New Fears after ISIS Rule

Some Mosul Residents Face New Fears after ISIS Rule

Mosul- Mohamed Mahmoud is relieved he no longer has to watch ISIS
militants hang corpses from electricity poles, now that Iraqi forces
have cleared the group from his east Mosul district. But he still fears
for his safety. Like other Iraqis, he worries that destructive forces like
sectarianism, which already provoked one civil war since the fall of
Saddam Hussein in 2003, will destabilize Iraq even if ISIS is completely
removed from Mosul.

The hardline jihadists were welcomed by some residents when they
seized Mosul in 2014 because Sunnis felt marginalized by the government
in Baghdad.
Those bitter feelings have not faded, adding to the sense of
uncertainty in a city with rows of buildings pulverized by airstrikes
and desperate for water and electricity supplies.
“I have to do paperwork in Baghdad. But I am afraid to go there. I may be killed because I am a Sunni,” said Mahmoud, 68.

Iraqi forces have retaken most of east Mosul and are preparing to
widen their offensive against ISIS to the western part of the city.
Gunshots rang out and mortar bombs were fired near the Tigris River,
which divides east and west.
A few Mosul residents stood on streets inspecting the destruction,
wondering where the Iraqi state would find the resources to rebuild what
was once a trade hub and one of the most tolerant cities in the Middle
East.

Few shops were open.
“There is no budget,” Abdel Sattar al Hibbo, head of the Mosul
municipality, told Reuters as he walked down a road surrounded by
buildings flattened by airstrikes.
Hibbo, who said he was shot several times by al Qaeda militants before ISIS was established, also has other worries.
“There were thousands of Daesh members here. They killed some and
caught some. The ones who were left over, some just shaved their beards
and blended in with the population,” he said.
Across town in the Mohandiseen district, there were plenty of
reminders of ISIS’ reign of terror. Anyone who did not have the
right-sized beard or trousers of the prescribed length was whipped.
A violation of a ban on televisions and mobile phones was punishable by beatings, jail, or worse.
Standing outside his house, which was taken over by the jhadists,
Mohamed Ibrahim recalls how he was on the ISIS blacklist, reaching into
his jacket pocket for a court document. “They accused me of refusing to
grow the right sized beard. They summoned me to court,” he said.
A nearby house once served as a holding area for women, possibly some
of the numerous people that ISIS turned into sex slaves. Baby strollers
and clothes were abandoned in a room.
Next door was a makeshift prison and torture center, where plastic handcuffs were scattered in a courtyard.
ISIS had taken the owner’s possessions, including children’s toys,
and thrown it out onto a rooftop. On top of the pile of belongings lay
an icepick with a bloodied handle.
“We used to hear the screaming at night,” said a neighborhood
resident, who declined to give his name for fear of reprisals against
his relatives, who live in west Mosul.